SQLServerCentral Article

TiVo for DBAs!!!

SQLServerCentral.com is all about learning. Our goal has been to build a community where we all teach each other how to become more proficient with SQL Server. Most of our content to date has been written articles that show you how to do something. Well we have a a better idea, maybe. Check out our new video HOWTO series.

Technical Article

Optimizing Your SQL Code with SQL Server 2005

A common complaint of database administrators (DBAs) is that performance bottlenecks are not among those problems that one can fix "by just throwing hardware at it." Thus, database servers must provide tools and techniques to help administrators address this issue. On that aspect, SQL Server 2005 does not disappoint.

Technical Article

Easy Package Configuration

One of the age old problems in DTS is moving packages between your development, test and production environments. Typically a series of manual edits needs to be done to all the packages to make sure that all the connection objects are pointing to the correct physical servers. This is time consuming and gives rise to the possibility of human error, particularly if the solution incorporates many DTS packages. Many companies have provided their own custom solutions for managing this problem but these are still workarounds for a problem that is inherently DTS's.

SQLServerCentral Article

Review - SQLPackager

Deploying a SQL Server database with your software can be tricky. It's easy to forget something that you added to development when trying to script out or detach and copy a database. And there's the whole problem of integrating the installation or upgrade into your main installation routine. New author Mark Vermeulen takes a look at Red Gate's SQLPackager, designed to make the job of deploying a database much easier.

SQLServerCentral Article

Four of a Kind - Backup Software Shootout Part 2

SQL Server has a rock solid backup and restore routine. However, it is not the most efficient way of handling the backups and restores. Neither in terms of time or space required. A number of software vendors have developed their own additions to SQL Server that accelerate or compress the backups (or both). Wesley Brown has taken four of these products into his environment and run some comparisons. Read about large databases in part 2 of this series.

Blogs

Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194

By

We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...

Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art

By

I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...

Simple Talks Podcasting in 2026

By

I’m in the UK today, having arrived this morning in London. Hopefully, by this...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Learning From Breakage

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Learning From Breakage

Python in Action to Auto-Generate an Optimized PostgreSQL Index Strategy

By sabyda

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Python in Action to Auto-Generate...

Adding and Dropping Columns I

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding and Dropping Columns I

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Adding and Dropping Columns I

I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList]
(
[CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1),
[CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
I decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use?

See possible answers